Bring your books in from QuickBooks

You can bring a year or more of history across from QuickBooks Online or Desktop. Nothing is saved until the result matches QuickBooks' own trial balance, so you know every transaction came across.

Steps

1. In QuickBooks, open Reports and export each of these as CSV:
   • Account List: your chart of accounts;
   • Journal: set the dates to the year you're bringing in, for example January 1 to December 31, 2026. If you use classes for funds, choose Customize and add the Class column first;
   • Trial Balance: as of the last day of the Journal's dates.
2. In Core1440, open Books, then your books, then press Bring in from QuickBooks.
3. Choose the three files and press Read the files.
4. Check Dates and funds: the Trial Balance date, and how funds are kept in QuickBooks (classes, locations, or not at all).
5. Check which fund each class is, and which account each QuickBooks account goes into. Accounts not in your chart are added to it.
6. Press Save and check.
7. Read Check against QuickBooks. When it says Every account matches QuickBooks' trial balance, press Bring in to save.
8. Repeat for the next year. Next time, your matches are remembered.

Then bring in donors

If QuickBooks recorded who gave, press Bring in donors when the import is done, to make households and gifts ready for tax receipts. See Bring in donors from QuickBooks.

Good to know

• Only Excel offered? Open each file in Excel and save it as CSV.
• Start with the oldest year. Core1440 won't bring in a year that's older than what's already in the books.
• One QuickBooks file, one set of books. If the school has its own QuickBooks file, bring it into the school's books. See Set up your books.
• Opening balances. For new books, the balances before the first transaction are worked out from the trial balance and shown before you save.
• Amounts between funds. QuickBooks often leaves the bank side of a deposit without a class. Core1440 adds lines on Due to / due from other funds so each fund balances, and says how many transactions needed it. The totals don't change. See Fund accounting in plain words.
• Accounts that don't match. Usually a transaction is missing from the Journal, or the reports were run for different dates. Export them again for the same dates and start a new import. Press Throw it away to discard the old one.
• Uploading the same files again brings in nothing twice.